THIS is how you advertise your vidya game

Nothing smaller than ENORMOUSLY GIGANTIC? Check.
Blue-haired underaged-looking schoolgirl? Check.
In school uniform? Check.
:3 face? Check.
Her name is Kona-chan? Check.

Actually 4/5 of those can apply only to the Lucky Star PS2 game which, by the way, is delayed until January 24. :( Oh well, at least there will be a giant Konata reminding people to buy the game until then!

This building, the Media Land building, which always has game-related ads posted all over it. Last spring it featured Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Apollo Justice), summer it was Crisis Core, and now it's Lucky Star. I wish they did this kind of thing everywhere in the world.

(Source: Akiba-ch)

New Disgaea 3 Trailer

Low-res 2D sprites are here to stay it seems, but it's not a bad thing for a game like Disgaea. Besides the portraits are crisper than ever, and when you zoom out you don't really notice the pixelation as much...and it surely will be much, much longer than its predecessors. I just hope they added a lot of new things (we've already seen some) because even I can't stand grinding for more than 6 hours a day :( And bring back the Statisticians! I missed them a lot in D2.

This trailer was ripped from PSN apparently. Will I get in trouble for this?

Also, guess who's narrating in the video.

Women and video games

Okay, the usual stance with regards to this issue is "LOL GIRL GAMERZ" (see picture) and that they don't really play video games. Of course they do. Although I will admit, the ones that I do see usually play casual/party games or rhythm games. And the ones that do play 'traditionally' male games (like fighting games) usually aren't very good at it. Or whatever is popular at the moment (Counter-Strike, for some reason, had many women playing, but Unreal and HL didn't get much love).

There are also women who are so vocal about their being "girl gamers" that it gets really unbelievably irritating, and yet the only games they play are CS and DotA and they aren't that good at it either. I mean, if you're a gamer then you're a gamer, regardless of the gender. No one is proud of being a "guy gamer".

So, I constructed a poll. It's on the right side of this site. It will run for 10 days. My blog can't get a good sample size, I know, but at least it'll give me a rough idea. How many women seriously play video games? We're not talking about rhythm games like DDR and Guitar Hero, party games, or games that you can win by button mashing. Seriously play as in, have been playing since childhood, have experienced controller-throwing frustration in a game yet still beat the game in question, yelled at your friend while playing Contra because he/she's too slow/fast, and know what "Roman Cancelling" is and how to do it. Of course, the definition of 'gaming' varies, and I really hate throwing around the term myself, but if you've been doing similar things, then that counts too.

Please vote, and thanks!

New Grand Theft Auto IV trailer. Right on time.

Some days ago when the official box art was finally revealed there was also an announcement about a new trailer coming, well, today. So here it is.

As per usual with GTA, there's still framerate issues, and the cutscenes still look like old Mafia movies. Some people might be annoyed by this; but then again isn't that what GTA really is? And the framerate can be looked over as long as the game is smooth overall. The animations however are getting pretty repetitive; I wish they'd make people move more realistically. Still it looks like a fun game--there hasn't been a non-fun GTA game (I'm not sure about the ones for PSP though as I haven't tried them) and free-roaming with such gorgeous (relatively anyway) graphics is going to be sweet.

Anyway there's also a HD version of the trailer if you would prefer that.

(Trailers from Gametrailers.com)

Some details about Street Fighter IV and one screenshot

Finally! After a few weeks and a giant shitstorm about SF becoming 3D, Capcom gives us some details (very few) about the upcoming and very late (about a decade late, in fact) direct-sequel in the Street Fighter series. From 1up:

-Graphics are 3D but gameplay is good ol' 2D
-New moves, locations, and features
-Six button controls remain
-Returning old characters: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Dhalsim; the rest still not revealed
-No systems revealed yet either

...and that's all that was revealed. Capcom keeps the details tightly sealed, but the January issue of EGM will have an extended coverage so look forward to that. In the meantime, screenshot:

This looks like Chun-Li's stage, and man look at the detail. Even those cheap plastic stools are gorgeous.


Also, Ryu's crotch. Good luck trying to unsee it.

New Ghostbusters screens, hands-on from IGN

Today's update will be in the style of Masahiro Sakurai just for shits and giggles.

What a creepy-looking graveyard!

Hey! Slimer! Don't play with food!

That sure is a lot of books...

Oh, no! He got me!

Don't cross the streams!

...oh you know what this sucks, here's the rest of the new screens (from IGN):

Read IGN's hands-on impression as well.

New Burnout Paradise screens

These were apparently from an asset disc EA gave out themselves, during a demo of an early build. Some guy got them and posted them on the internet for our viewing pleasure. Thanks guy!

Burnout Paradise is looking really beautiful. Look at the nicely-detailed textures, and the designs are excellent. Well...not much else to say aside from that, since this is Burnout after all so you know what to expect. Oh, and it runs on 60 fps. Sixty.

These screens are from the PS3 version.

There's actually a lot more images than that, and I mean a lot more, but I can't really post them all here. If you wanna see the rest head over to X-Power, who provided these screenshots.